[Eaglesdrb]

Having read this I can only say I am just as appalled as you are. I feel that something like this is the opposite of what FIRST is supposed to be about and would actually discourage people from even wanting to join.

As for dismissing people it may be necessary to have a clause somewhere in your documentation that allows you to kick people out for certain reasons but nothing that excessive. To the best of my knowledge from 4 years in this club we only asked one person to not come back due to an incident involving a flying 2x4 and a bloody nose. Other then them causing complete mayhem or being unable to keep their grades up (at which point they should be allowed back once they fix the problem) there should be no reason to remove a kid from the team.

The fees are what I am most annoyed about here. Granted every now and then our team does have to ask parents to hand over a little cash to pay for hotels and such when we are unable to (small team and a nationals trip last year drained our accounts completely. We have since fixed the problem and doubled our sponsorship input =D) pay it out of the club account. And even then we never excluded a person from going because they can't pay and always brought everyone who wanted and deserved to go. But to pay simply to participate on the team i find absurd. One of the key ideas behind FIRST is to get kids out and talking to big name companies to generate sponsorship. It builds professional communication and was that definitely something I took away from the year I spent as CFO.